1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to silane-terminated polymers and methods for producing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Crosslinkable silane-terminated polymers (STPs) are widely used as raw material polymers in coating materials, adhesives, sealing materials, elastomers and the like (CASE applications) for architectural or industrial use. STPs typically comprise polyether polyols and vulcanizable alkoxysilane end groups. Depending on end-use applications, the mechanical property requirements of a cured STP vary significantly. One conventional method for producing an STP with improved mechanical properties, such as higher modulus and tensile strength, is to increase the functionality of the polyether polyol and/or reduce the equivalent weight of the polyol. However, modulus and tensile strength improvements achieved using conventional methods comes at the expense of elongation loss. Therefore, modulus improvement achievable using the conventional method is limited.
Therefore there is a need for crosslinkable silane-terminated polymers and methods for making such silane-terminated polymers with improved modulus and tensile strength properties while maintaining elongation properties.